Then she uttered an involuntary cry, for a man's head and shoulders rose from behind a leafy shrub. Instantly she was ashamed of her fear. It was the old guide who acted as coachman the previous evening, and he had been lying face downward on the grass in that part of the cemetery given over to the unnamed dead. He recognized her at once. Struggling awkwardly to his feet, he said in broken and halting German, "I pray your forgiveness, _fraeulein_. I fear I have alarmed you." "It is I who should ask forgiveness," she said. "I came here by accident. I thought I could go to Cavloccio by this path." She could have hit on no other words so well calculated to bring him back to every day life. To direct the steps of wanderers in his beloved Engadine was a real pleasure to him. For an instant he forgot that they had both spoken German. "No, no!" he cried animatedly. "For lek him go by village. Bad road dissa way. No cross ze field. _Verboten!_" Then Helen remembered that trespassers are sternly warned off the low lying lands in the mountains. Grass is scarce and valuable. Until the highest pastures yield to the arid rock, pedestrians must keep to the beaten track. "I was quite mistaken," she said. "I see now that the path I was trying to reach leads here only. And I am very, very sorry I disturbed you." [Illustration: "I fear I have alarmed you, _fraeulein_." _Page 88_] He hobbled nearer, the ruin of a fine man, with a nobly proportioned head and shoulders, but sadly maimed by the accident which, to all appearances, made him useless as a guide. "Pardon an old man's folly, _fraeulein_," he said humbly. "I thought none could hear, and I felt the loss of my little girl more than ever to-day." "Your daughter? Is she buried here?" "Yes. Many a year has passed; but I miss her now more than ever. She was all I had in the world, _fraeulein_. I am alone now, and that is a hard thing when the back is bent with age." Helen's eyes grew moist; but she tried bravely to control her voice. "Was she young?" she asked softly. "Only twenty, _fraeulein_, only twenty, and as tall and fair as yourself. They carried her here sixteen years ago this very day. I did not even see her. On the previous night I fell on Corvatsch." "Oh, how sad! But why did she die at that age? And in this splendid climate? Was her death unexpected?" "Unexpected!" He turned and looked at the huge mountain of which the cemetery hill formed one of the lowermost buttresses. "If the Piz della Margna were to topple over and crush me where I stand, it would be less unforeseen than was my sweet Etta's fate. But I frighten you, lady,--a poor return for your kindness. That is your way,--through the village, and by the postroad till you reach a notice board telling you where to take the path." There was a crude gentility in his manner that added to the pathos of his words. Helen was sure that he wished to be left alone with his memories. Yet she lingered.